So seeking ways to spend less wannabe whales took to 3'rd party sites that were selling in-game currency for significantly less than the official blizzard ones.
How the 3'rd party was getting ahold of said currency is up to debate, ranging from hacking, to stolen credit cards, to simply buying them in developing countries where they are less and transferring them to the US and other more expensive markets.
Either way when Blizzard caught on they deducted the costs of the ill-gotten orbs from player accounts leaving many of those players with extremely negative balances.
Since matchmaking is done based on the number of Orbs spent, players in the extreme negatives are unable to play anything ranked because they cant match with anybody, which to clear off would mean they need to spend 10's even 100's of thousands of USD in the store.
Needless to say, they are just quitting the game instead.
https://www.thegamer.com/blizzard-revokes-third-party-diablo-immortal-orb-purchases/
How the 3'rd party was getting ahold of said currency is up to debate, ranging from hacking, to stolen credit cards, to simply buying them in developing countries where they are less and transferring them to the US and other more expensive markets.
Either way when Blizzard caught on they deducted the costs of the ill-gotten orbs from player accounts leaving many of those players with extremely negative balances.
Since matchmaking is done based on the number of Orbs spent, players in the extreme negatives are unable to play anything ranked because they cant match with anybody, which to clear off would mean they need to spend 10's even 100's of thousands of USD in the store.
Needless to say, they are just quitting the game instead.
https://www.thegamer.com/blizzard-revokes-third-party-diablo-immortal-orb-purchases/